You plus Me add Moonlight makes Three
by AccioMuerta
Summary: Hermione takes on a job as Snape's maid to some unexpected results.


**Disclaimer: Surprise, surprise, I own none of it except the plot (which I may or may not want to own up to). **

**A/N: **Lyrics (_in italics_) are to Dean Martin's "Me 'n You 'n the Moon." Written for the Hideaway Februrary Songfic - Write a funny story using any song and two HP characters. This is what came out. Reviews are welcome and encouraged. Happy reading!

* * *

"Granger, I asked for a maid, not a cook."

Hermione rolled her eyes and plunked the plate in front of her employer. "Get over yourself, Snape. Broccoli never hurt anyone."

Snape picked up one of the steamed florets between his thumb and forefinger. "I don't eat green," he said then flung the offending vegetable at Hermione. The broccoli hit her square in the forehead. She did not flinch.

_(Me 'n you 'n the moon  
__We two 'n the moon)_

"Watch me not clean that up."

"You're the maid," Snape growled. "That means I pay you to clean."

"Not anymore." Hermione untied her apron, balled it up, and tossed it Snape's direction. He half-caught the black apron. The rest draped over his head. He yanked it off then stormed after the retreating Hermione. She only just made her way outside Snape's Spinner's End abode in time to slam the door in the owner's face. That, in turn, gave her just enough time to reach the park around the corner before Snape caught up.

"Get back here," he demanded. Hermione kept walking. Snape took hold of her arm and spun her to face him.

"Let go," she said, equally demanding.

"Not until you agree to come back."

"Merlin's balls, Severus," Hermione said.

"I'll eat your offensive green vegetables."

"No. You won't. You don't take care of yourself or your place. Isn't that why you hired me in the first place?"

"Excuse me for being dead!" Snape said. He released her.

_We don't need to swing in a hammock  
__We don't need the nightingale's tune  
__All we need to get going  
__Is me 'n you 'n the moon_

Hermione backed away several steps. "Which means I should only be running to the shop for you, not cleaning up all your damn messes. You're corporeal, Severus. Just wave your wand." She waved her arms for emphasis. "Just because you're supposedly not living anymore doesn't mean you can't do things for yourself. Like cooking or dusting or, oh, say, vacuuming now and then. Here's a great one: pick up after your own damn potions explosions!"

"Who has time for it?" Snape turned and walked slowly back to his home. He had only taken Granger on in the first place because she needed the money and he needed someone who could move about freely that was not about to go blabbing to everyone he was still in the living world.

Hermione watched for a moment then ran after him. "One condition," she said. She knew the dejected look he had shot her before turning away. That very look was what caused her to consider taking the job in the first place.

"I eat your terrible cooking," Snape said, conjecturing on what she might ask of him.

_We don't need a heavenly setting  
__We don't need a sleepy lagoon  
__All we need to get going  
__Is me 'n you 'n the moon_

"You take me on as apprentice, you dolt." Hermione still had no idea why Snape put up with her name-calling and foul language. Merlin knows he would never have stood for it in his classroom. Perhaps he actually saw her as some sort of equal? She shook that thought off. He would never consider her an equal.

"Fine."

"Now wait a minute!" Hermione fully expected a fight from him or some smart-ass comment. But all she got was acceptance? Something wasn't right. Her brain finally caught up. "Oh, well, okay then. I'll see you tomorrow." As she turned away she threw in "Sir," for good measure.

---

While Harry and Ron were off learning to be Aurors, Hermione had gone back to Hogwarts. Once she graduated, she found herself a bit homeless. School was expensive and she desperately wanted to go into the medical field, but could hardly afford it along with rent and utilities and general living costs such as food. Enter Snape. When he first appeared she thought he was a ghost. Then she realized he had always been that pale. She just did not expect him to have survived. No one did, after all. Hermione, Ron and Harry had seen him die, or at least thought they did.

"Incognito, Granger. No one knows I'm alive," Snape had said to her that snowy morning in January. "I just need someone who can move around in the world and take care of errands. There might be some house work involved should you need more money."

_Just the three of us  
__What a situation  
__Just the three of us  
__Plus a natural inclination_

Of course she agreed. Hermione still did not trust Snape, be he paid her well enough and never made her do anything terribly humiliating. After a year, though, she found more and more that her presence made him lazy. Snape so loved the excuse that the snakebite had drained him. Could she clear up the explosive potion he left in the cauldron, please?

And if that was not enough, Snape was hardly eating. Perhaps it was the bite or the laziness, but more like he would not be bothered to cook. Thus, Hermione took it on herself to do the cooking too. She worried about him, and it was not all out of employee concern.

---

Hermione sat across from Snape, a successful pot of beef stew (by her standards) loaded with carrots and potatoes and roast beef between them. "You can't bear to lose me," she said.

"Hardly. I prefer not to owl post everything." Snape dug into his second bowl, dipping a piece of bread into the sauce at the bottom to get at the last few drops. He licked his long fingers clean.

"What happens when I finally have a life of my own?"

"I shall be long dead by that time."

_We don't need a flowery season  
__Love is love December or June  
__We can make our own weather  
__Just put us together  
__Me 'n you 'n the moon_

Hermione threw down her napkin. Snape chuckled as she left in a huff. The front door slammed.

"Good. More for me," he said and dug into some more stew. Secretly, he missed her immediately.

The next morning Snape made a point of being extra thorough in his love potion explanation. Being nearly Valentine's Day and all, he wanted to make sure she knew what she could possibly be getting into since she had a date?

"I most certainly would not tell you," Hermione said. She rolled her eyes to yet another long divergence on the history of lust and the purpose of the lust potion versus a love potion of equal merit. She would be sure to watch whatever she ate or drank that day and the following days.

However, she need not have worried. Snape knew slipping her anything could be fatal to his being and he was so enjoying the occasional lewd comment or lascivious stare to emphasis his point.

_(We don't need a comfortable parlor  
__We don't need the nightingale's tune  
__All we need to get going  
__Is you 'n me 'n the moon_

"How is the Weasel?" he asked the eve of Valentine's.

Hermione stood in the entry pulling her scarf tight and was just about to put her mittens on. "None of your business."

"Fine. I'll expect you as usual tomorrow. We're starting night blooming Plants."

Hermione groaned. "I have a date." It sound made up even to her.

"Do you?"

_We don't need a horse and a buggy  
__Buggy rides are over too soon  
__All we need to get going  
__Is me 'n you 'n the moon)_

Damn it all, he'd caught on. "No," she said and shook her head. Then, grudgingly, "I'll be here." She wished she had not gotten in a fight with Ron in the last week.

---

Somehow they had passed much of the day avoiding each other. Snape, obviously, had no one except Hermione. Since she and Ron were at least temporarily at odds, Hermione had no desire to be near anyone in a relationship lest she inadvertently bite their head off or hex them. She managed to keep to her cleaning and cooking and whatnot and Snape did whatever he did during most days.

At precisely eleven twenty four the night of Valentine's in the back garden, Hermione met Snape. He blended into the shadows so well she scarcely could see him.

"A rose by any other name," he started.

"Don't finish that." She joined him in the back corner. "Well, I'm here."

Snape held out a delicate white flower. The petals glinted blue in the moonlight. "Not a rose, but a much more rare breed," he said.

_Just the three of us  
__What a situation  
__Just the three of us  
__Plus the natural inclination_

Hermione took the flower, mesmerized by the way the blue and white played off one another in the light. "How do you have one of these?"

"My mother obtained the original. I'm afraid I've never been able to part with it." He gave her a vague smile. "Be a shame for no one to inherit it when I die."

"You're giving this to me?" Okay, so he had not exactly said he would, but Hermione could read between his words perfectly well after spending so much time with him. Hermione held up one of the most rare specimens in the plant world. "_Hyacinthoides Crepusculum_," she said reverently.

"Indeed. But only on my death," Snape said with a growl.

"Thank you, Severus. This is the best gift anyone has ever given me." She placed the delicate flower back on the plant and it immediately reattached itself before shrinking back into the darkness., "I don't know how to thank you."

Snape turned away. He had a few ideas in mind, but was suddenly too ashamed to voice them. "Go apologize to your boyfriend. Go on a date. It's Valentine's. You shouldn't be here with an old, greasy git."

"I kind of like it here. It's oddly romantic. You, me, the moonlight." She smiled. Enough of the subtext already. "I have a few ideas as to how to thank you now that I think on it."

_We don't need a flowery season  
__Love is love December or June  
__We can make our own weather  
__Just put us together  
__Me 'n you 'n the moon_

Snape turned back to her, shocked. "You can't mean what I think you mean," he said.

"I think I do," Hermione said with a teasing smile. "Unless you slipped me one of those potions you've been going on about for the last several days."

He smiled and let her lead him into the house. "Perhaps St. Valentine wasn't as annoying as I always thought."

"No, he's that annoying. You," she said placing a kiss on his cheek, "just have reason to not be as annoyed this year." With that he swept her up in his arms.

Fin


End file.
